


3

by RileyC



Category: DCU Animated
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Flying, Gen, M/M, Wishes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:31:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three drabbles, written for challenges at ComicDrabbles on LJ.</p><p>1. Mr. Mxyzptlk comes to visit, and Clark *says* he read "The Monkey's Paw..."<br/>2. Dick is having a tough time getting settled in at the Manor; that cavernous bedroom they put him in, for instance, just never gets warm...<br/>3. Superman flies...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When You Wish Upon an Imp

“Mr. Mxyzptlk…” Clark murmured as he continued to look on with a kind of distant horror as the drama played out.  
  
Beside him, Lois shot him a look, shook her head, and stepped forward as Lex Luthor barked, “…yes, yes, I’ve been stockpiling Kryptonite for years.” For a moment, he gripped his head as if to shake something loose—or smash it into the podium. A look of desperation in his eyes, he added, “I have an entire secret laboratory devoted exclusively to finding ways to kill Superman. Next question! Yes, Lois Lane.”  
  
“Lex, just to clarify,” Lois said as pencils scribbled, cameras whirred, and TV news crews recorded every moment, “you called this press conference in order to confess to all of your crimes?”  
  
A scowl of impatience twisted Luthor’s face. “For the last time, _yes_. I am guilty of every crime against humanity and Kryptonians that you have ever suspected. I once tried to sell my soul to the devil. He declined on the grounds that _I_ had things to teach _him_.” With the look of a man on the verge of apoplexy, Luthor threw his head back and screamed at the sky, “Are you happy now? Is that enough?”  
  
For the first time ever, Lois and Mercy’s eyes met with a look of shared concern, while all around them the reporters who had descended upon the impromptu news conference like ravenous hyenas on a putrefying carcass kept licking their chops for more. Only Clark, out of the corner of his eye, glimpsed the disembodied hand that tipped a purple derby in acknowledgement to Luthor before it winked completely out of sight.

~*~

  
  
“You want to run that past me again?” Batman asked.  
  
Clark sighed. As he hovered in the Cave, he went through it again. How Mr. Mxyzptlk had shown up at his apartment the other day and wanted to know why Clark was all gloomy.  
  
“Were you gloomy?”  
  
He shrugged. “Little bit. It had just been one of those days. You know?”  
  
The cowled head tipped in a nod.  
  
“Luthor had wriggled his way out of trouble again and I said something about wishing how just once I’d like to see Luthor shout to all the world that he was guilty.”  
  
“You _wished_ …” Bruce gave him a hard look.  
  
“I know, I know.” Clark sighed again. “I’ve read _The Monkey’s Paw_. It was just the one wish.” Nothing else had happened; no sign of an horrific chain of events that unwound from that one action.  
  
“And there was just the one wish?”  
  
“Yes. I mean, well, mostly.”  
  
White lenses narrowed with suspicion. “Mostly?”  
  
“Umm…” A sense of horror did present itself now as Mr. Mxyzptlk, one finger raised to his lips, sprinkled a sparkly dust over Bruce.  
  
 _I wish Luthor would admit he’s guilty. I wish that book would turn up. I wish Bruce would change his mind about us._  
  
The book had turned up, and now Bruce had the oddest look on his face…

 


	2. First Sign of Spring

“Sir.” Alfred quietly drew Master Bruce’s attention to the small figure that crept down the steps to the Cave. Still in cape and cowl, Bruce nodded and cleared the screen of the most gruesome details of the Joker’s latest crime spree before young Master Dick arrived and clambered up to make himself comfortable on Bruce’s lap.  
  
“Too cold in your bedroom again?”  
  
“Uh-huh. Is that supposed to be a clown?”  
  
“That’s how he styles himself, yes.”  
  
Neck craned, Dick peered more closely at the image on the screen. “I don’t think Mr. Haley would hire him.”  
  
“I don’t think he would, either.”  
  
This had become a familiar pattern, Alfred thought as he resumed tidying up. Master Dick would be put to bed in his quite comfortably warm bed only to shortly thereafter turn up in the kitchen or library, or down here in the Cave, with the claim that he couldn’t sleep because it was freezing upstairs. Master Bruce, after he had searched in vain for a draft, had lately turned his investigations in another area—after a subtle nudge or two from Alfred.  
  
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Bruce said now, “that it’s been awhile since we’ve moved the furniture around and changed out the curtains around here. What do you think about starting with your room?”  
  
“Yeah?” There was a strong note of excitement in the young voice. “Maybe some paint and stuff, too?”  
  
“We can do paint, wallpaper, some new carpet. Do you think a new bed might be warmer?”  
  
“Maybe, if it was a little smaller.”  
  
“So you’d be up for a shopping expedition tomorrow?”  
  
“Will you come along, too?” Dick asked, the tentative hope in his voice almost painful.  
  
Thankfully Master Bruce heard it as well and swiftly reassured the boy. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything. Sound like a plan?”  
  
As Dick agreed that it did, Alfred reflected that things looked to be rather hectic and lively around here in the very near future. He thoroughly approved. A bleak chill _had_ pervaded the house for many years now and there had been moments Alfred feared it would never lift. Day by day, however, since the advent of Master Dick, glimmers of warm sunlight had begun to break through and disperse the wintry gloom.  
  
It was good to remember what hope felt like and to anticipate the arrival of spring.

 


	3. Icarus Triumphant

  
What’s it feel like to fly?  
  
Exhilarating. Transcendent. _Awesome._  
  
Actually he’s not sure there _is_ a word for it, not in any language on Earth or Krypton. He gets the question so often, though, that he wants to be able to produce a succinct yet evocative answer. Choosing the right words and arranging them to produce that effect is what he does for a living, after all.  
  
He can’t even fully explain the mechanism. It’s innate; something that slumbered deep in his DNA until all those years of soaking up golden sunlight under the Kansas sky triggered it and sent him soaring.  
  
He doesn’t exult in it often, there is so seldom time for that, but today has been a long and hard one and he craves the Sun. Launched into the air, he flies higher and higher, head thrown back and arms spread wide to receive that light. It tingles through him and ignites every cell and nerve and he whoops with the joy of it.  
  
This light will never harm him. He is Icarus Triumphant and his wings will never melt.


End file.
